


All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put him back together

by Saral_Hylor



Series: the mortar will hold. it's the bricks that are crumbling [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Break Up, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers is not fine, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, inconsistent timeline, relationship miscommunication
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the order came for Steve to move to DC to further his work with SHILED, he didn't hesitate to comply. He was a soldier without a war, so the next best thing was working to try and protect people. </p>
<p>Leaving New York was a strategic move. He wasn't running away. </p>
<p>He wasn't. </p>
<p>~~<br/>or the author's shameless effort to make her series compliant with Cap 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First up, the timeline in this story is a little wacky.  
> Second up, this is my shameless attempt to get the Bricks series up to date with Cap 2 and I didn't know how to do that without covering a lot of the events in Cap 2 over again. I'm not rewriting the whole movie, everyone knows how that goes, what I've attempted is to cover moments that I think are pivotal to the plot, and part of the movie that I think it is important to cover Steve's reaction (as he is in this series). Also, I needed to fit Tony and Steve's relationship into/around the events of Cap 2 as well. 
> 
> This is also the second chaptered work in the series. The first chapter takes place near the end of the movie's events, but later chapters will back track to earlier. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading this, as always I'd love to know what you think :)

It seemed, that after everything—seventy years under the ice, fighting aliens and gods, slowly getting used to the 21st century, Tony, all of it—he couldn’t actually escape his past.

Instead, it seemed, that the past was going to kill him.

He was pretty sure that this was how he was going to die. Not crashing a plane, not fighting Hydra, or aliens, but at the hands of someone who used to be his friend.

For a split second, despite the noise in his head telling him to fight back, the ache in his chest where he wondered if Tony would miss him, he thought, that if this was going to be it, then maybe he was okay with that.

At least if he was dead he could stop pretending to be okay. At least in death he wouldn’t be haunted by the memories. 

It wasn’t Bucky who was staring down at him, it wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes that had shot him, hit him, cracked his bones and made him bleed. It was the Winter Solider that was holding him down, hurting him. 

It was different memories that assaulted him though, in that moment. Memories of Bucky picking him up and getting involved in his fights. Of the way that Bucky had looked at him when he got home after midnight from his date and had found him in their tiny little bathroom, trying to clean himself up. The way Bucky’s eyes had stared at him, wide and horrified and confused. The same way that the Winter Soldier was staring at him, one fist raised but not moving, like he didn’t know anymore what he was doing. 

That night had been the first time that Bucky had stepped away from him, hadn’t been able to look at the damage that he’d been trying to clean up. He hadn’t blamed Bucky though, it had been so obvious what had happened. 

It had also been the first time he’d flinched away from Bucky when he tried to help. 

It’d been the last time Bucky had had to pick him up after a beating. 

He wanted to tell Bucky that it was okay. That they’d be okay. That he’d be fine. But it wasn’t Bucky that was looking at him. 

Then he was falling. 

If this was how he was going to die, he could live with that. The Hellicarriers were going down. Tony was safe. 

Tony. 

He hoped Tony wasn’t going to miss him too much. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prior to moving DC, things started falling apart.

“So, I guess this means there isn’t going to be any group discussion about this?”

Steve didn’t look up from carefully smoothing the creases out of the t-shirt he’d just placed in his duffle bag. He knew he was just avoiding looking at Tony, but he didn’t have to look up to know the other man was standing in the doorway, feigning casual and leaning against the door frame like he didn’t have a care in the world. It was the public appearance ready version of Tony Stark. Steve didn’t particularly like that version of Tony. He wanted the rumpled and sleepy-eyed version of Tony that he’d seen that morning, with that warm lazy smile, the way he’d been when they woke up. That special smile that Tony gave him when he realised that Steve had stayed the whole night again. 

The version of Tony he didn’t think he’d see again since the conference call they’d had with Fury. Since Tony’s face had closed off at the words that Fury had said, the orders he gave. Since he plastered a smirk and a layer of sarcasm over the hurt that Steve had seen briefly flash in Tony’s eyes. 

“We already had a team meeting.” He informed the neatly folder shirt that he transferred from the bed to his duffle bag. 

“Team meeting? I don’t know where you’ve been, but that wasn’t a meeting. That was Fury giving orders and you, Natasha and Barton all just snapping your heels together and saluting with a chorus of ‘yes, sirs’.” The discontent was evident in Tony’s voice. 

“I signed up to work for SHIELD, Tony. Generally when someone employs you they expect at certain level of compliance and actual work out of you.” He pressed the edges of another shirt flat with the tips of his fingers, not sure if he could actually find the effort to look up at Tony. 

The other man stepped into the room, the sound of his footsteps muted on the carpet. “What about your other job? You know, the one where you are Captain America and you lead a team of superheroes called the Avengers? What about that job?” 

“That’s not really a job, it’s more like a voluntary emergency response service.” He heard Tony huff in disagreement but he kept talking. “If anything happens, we can still respond.” 

“You won’t be here though,” Tony protested, indignant and frustrated. “The whole idea of having everyone together was to keep the team structure and have some sort of cohesiveness.” 

Steve finally looked up at Tony, catching sight of the stress lines on his forehead and the way his eyes were slightly screwed up, almost like he was in pain. “There are probably plenty of incidents that the Avengers would need to respond to over in DC just as many as there are here.”

Tony blinked at him, swallowed noticeably and glanced away, eyes locking on the window, but it didn’t look as though he was looking at the view. “But we wouldn’t be the Avengers if we’re spread all over the place.” 

He wanted to say something reassuring in response, like that fact that they wouldn’t be that far away from each other, that they could visit each other, or could video call, but before he had the chance, Tony kept talking, arms cross over his chest like he was trying to protect himself without the armour. 

“Is this because of us? I mean, Cap, are you so keen to get out of here because you just can’t stand being around me anymore?” Tony didn’t look at him, his words directed towards the window. 

He wanted to protest, to say that it had nothing to do with the fact he had agreed to leave. But the words tasted like lies as he swallowed them back down. Because, part of him was telling him that it was true. The part of him that made him sneak out of Tony’s bed some nights because he couldn’t trust himself to go to sleep. The part of him that had freaked out and locked up and scared Tony the one time they’d tried to do something more than just lie beside each other in bed. The part of him that knew he was messed up and broken and that despite knowing that, there wasn’t anything he would do to get better. The part that knew he was never going to be good enough for Tony, never be well enough for them to even have a proper relationship. 

It was that part of him that knew he was running away, letting himself get distracted because it was safer than peering inside the open wounds and finding out that there wasn’t any way for him to stitch himself back together. 

It was denial; bruised black and old, but the last defense. And even that last defense tasted like whiskey stained breath, dirty pavement and his own blood. 

“It’s not – that’s not what this is about.” The response sounded weak and frayed even to his own ears. 

Tony’s head snapped back to look at him, eyes narrowed and ready for a fight. “It isn’t? Is that a fact? Cap? Because I call bullshit. This is about us and about what happened and about how this isn’t getting any better and you know it, Rogers. You know that this is barely holding together, that you’re barely holding together, and you know that you’re running away from the issues here.” 

He felt cracked and dirty beneath the surface, memories battering against the last ragged parts of the walls that were still standing. Memories of the night he’d freaked out, when it had all started falling apart and the solid weight of guilt he’d seen hanging over Tony ever since. “I’m not running away, I’m following orders, trying to do the right thing, because I want to protect people. They need me in DC, so I’m going there. _This isn’t about us_.”

“It’s never about us, is it? Us is always just an afterthought.” The bitterness in Tony’s voice was almost tangible, fists clenched at his aides and shoulders rigid, like he was exercising every ounce of control not to call the suit to him. “Ever think that maybe, just maybe, Rogers, that it should actually be about us? About you? You keep running away and pushing back and building walls and ignoring what happened and the whole time you’re just falling apart and you refuse to see it. You refuse to get help.” 

“I don’t need help!” Anger snapped and crackled beneath his skin, he had to make himself zip up his duffle bag, sling it over his shoulder and head for the door, because some dark horrible part of himself was urging him to just hit Tony to make his shut up. He grabbed up his shield from where it sat beside the door frame, not even looking back at the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, because he didn’t trust himself to look at Tony without finally snapping. 

Tony laughed, harsh and sardonic. “No, because Captain America is just so fucking perfect that it isn’t possible for him to have issues.” 

“Correct. Some of us don’t have the luxury of being a hot mess, Stark. You’ve got that title monopolised on this team anyway.” He didn’t need to look to know that the words had hurt. 

“If that’s the case, then it’s all the more reason why you should be getting help.” The words came out like they were meant to be defiant, one last protest, but there was a note of guilt and defeat to the statement that didn’t make any of his anger abate. 

Whirling around to face Tony again, Steve brought the shield up and slammed it into the wall beside the door, it felt like the only way to stop himself from hitting Tony instead. The wall crumpled beneath the impact, plaster falling to the floor and the doorframe cracking near the point of impact. “I’m fine! And even if I wasn’t, it’s not like _you_ could help me!” 

Tony stared at him with wide eyes, looking defeated and like he was on the verge of apology. But Tony Stark never backed down, not from a good fight. He knew it was only because of pity that he would give in now. Turning sharply on his heel, Steve slammed the shield onto his back, seating it in the attachment on his uniform and stormed back out the door. “Bill me for the damages.” 

There should have been a cutting remark follow him down the hallway. He should have heard Tony shout something along the lines of “like you could afford them” but all that followed him was silence. 

That silence felt like it tore off a piece of him and left it fallen on the floor amongst the plaster chips and dust. 

But he couldn’t afford to go back and try to pick it up. He had to be stronger than that. 


	3. Chapter 3

DC was different. The apartment SHIELD had gotten him was different. It wasn’t home. It wasn’t his room in the tower. It wasn’t like New York at all. 

S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him busy. 

Natasha was there with him on almost every mission. For everything she was, everything she had been, she was some kind of stabilising force. An even keel. And somehow that was enough for him to keep going every day, to wake up and go to work and just keep going. One foot in front of the other for as many months as it took. 

He didn’t go back to New York. Despite the ache in the pit of his stomach that just wanted to go back to somewhere that felt like home. 

He didn’t call Tony. He picked up his phone multiple times, he lost count of how many times he had his thumb hovering over Tony’s number but he never connected the call. He wouldn’t have known what to say if he had, how to apologise. How to mend the gaping wound that was tearing wider and wider between him and the one thing, the one person, who had made him feel better. 

Tony didn’t call him either. 

The nightmares and the memories didn’t stop. 


End file.
